Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-fcrnt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-12-27T16:48:16.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Coming soon

Augustine and the Natural Law

Expected online publication date:  26 March 2026

Katherine Chambers
Affiliation:
University of New England

Summary

Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE) is widely recognised as providing the foundational theological discussion of the natural law for Western Christianity. Yet his thinking on the natural law has not been examined in depth, despite the growing interest among contemporary theologians and philosophers in the natural law. For Christian thinkers, the idea of a natural moral law directly raises the question of the relationship between reason and revelation. In particular, the idea of the natural law needs to be reconciled with the idea of the divine law: that is, with the traditional Christian claim that knowing right from wrong is dependent in some way, or to some extent, on receiving God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ. This study revisits and revises our understanding of how Augustine reconciled reason and revelation in his discussion of the natural law.

Information

Type
Element
Information
Online ISBN: 9781009677684
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this Element is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Augustine and the Natural Law
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Augustine and the Natural Law
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Augustine and the Natural Law
Available formats No formats are currently available for this content.
×